


Misadventures at the Monastery

by habenaria_radiata



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Gen, Humor, One Shot Collection, Slice of Life, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 23:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/habenaria_radiata/pseuds/habenaria_radiata
Summary: It's a lot of work to maintain one's position as the monastery's most popular professor. A lot of work, a lot of patience, a lot of strange conversations, and an awful lot of watering cans.Luckily, Byleth takes it in stride.Pre-timeskip





	Misadventures at the Monastery

**Author's Note:**

> This work is dedicated to my friend King, who made Sylvain break a fence without realizing that the Lance of Ruin was his only equipped weapon.
> 
> Here's to you, King. I salute you.
> 
> A big thank you to [Decay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decay/profile) for beta-ing for me.

* * *

By Byleth's estimate, the battle was about half-over. They'd made strategic use of the buildings before them, driving the thieves back and paring down a near majority of their numbers. Their force was now thin enough that she felt comfortable spurring the students forward, seizing the advantage to make a clean sweep of the village.  
  
She took a brief stock of the area before she motioned for the tiny unit encamped at the right to begin pushing forward first. The students obeyed her without question. They seemed to work well in the groups she'd set up. Dimitri was perfectly happy at the front line; she could position him just at the edges of danger, Annette at his back where she could destroy anyone who didn't happen to fall under the first stroke of his lance. Mercedes hovered directly in the middle, protected by both Byleth's sword and Ashe's arrows.  
  
At the right, she could see a shock of bright hair, burning at the corner of her eye like autumn leaves. Sylvain and Felix were obvious impatiently waiting for her motion for them to push forward as well, eager to converge on the enemy, one half of the pincer movement she was clearly working toward. She eyed them a moment, then frowned. There was a wooden fence in their way. It didn't look particularly sturdy, but Sylvain was still getting his bearings on horseback. As sure as she was he'd love the chance to show off, they weren't exactly here for a pony show.  
  
"Sylvain," she called to him, cupping a hand around her mouth. "Go ahead and break that wall down."  
  
But Sylvain did not. She was so accustomed to them leaping up at her every command that when he didn’t do it immediately, she turned to blink at him, wrinkling her nose faintly and shifting her hand over her eyes to shield them from the bright sunlight. "Are you sure?" he finally called back.  
  
A soft frown seized her. "Yes, I'm sure." So maybe it wasn't entirely necessary, but, truth be told, the wall just annoyed her, and she wanted it gone. His tone was bizarre to her, though, and she blinked and craned her neck back at him, like perhaps there was something wrong with the fence she couldn’t see. Had they built it out of babies or something? "Wait, why do you-"  
  
She was swiftly interrupted by the crunch of fragile wood, the wall splintering in a melodramatic mess of chips and dust. Byleth flinched from it on instinct, as if shrapnel of fence might hit her despite being so far away. But as she shoved her arm back down, she gazed across the distance to see the Lance of Ruin enshrined by two shattered halves of a fence.  
  
Both her hands pressed to her face as she crouched down to the ground, a slow breath pushing out of her nose.  
  
"God damn it."  
  
Things were awkwardly silent for a moment. She took the opportunity to compose herself and stood again, surveying the damage with a look of utter resignment on her face. _It’s not worth a Divine Pulse_, her mind chanted. _It’s not worth a Divine Pulse_. Faintly, she could make out Sylvain's voice as he leaned closer to Felix from the back of his mount. "She's mad, isn't she?"  
  
Whatever Felix said next, she couldn’t make out, but she could hear him hiss, “You’re an idiot,” at the end of it.  
  
She ignored them both. Jerking a hand for Dedue to take her place as Mercie’s vanguard, she jogged over to to them, dust pluming up beneath her feet. "I'm not mad. It's my fault." Byleth stopped beside him and held her arms out. "Hand over the twitching bone lance."  
  
Sylvain complied, sheepishly gripping it in both his hands, holding it just over her open palms before he stopped. "Okay, just- do me a favor, will you?" A roguish little smirk seized him as he propped the lance against one shoulder, motioning with his now free hand. "If you tell anyone else this story, will you describe it _exactly_ like that?"  
  
Byleth stared at him. Her expression would have looked more at home on a statue whose artist had decided that granite could be the only possible medium in which to immortalize that amount of scorn on a human face. "Give me the lance, Sylvain."  
  
"...Yes, ma'am." He was much quicker to hand it over this time, accepting the silver lance she shoved into his hands instead.  
  
She was definitely going to be drafting a lecture on appropriate weapons and when to use them.

\---

The courtyard was blessedly empty for once. Their free days were generally hit-or-miss -- typically, either all the professors were gone taking their students out for practice battles, or none of them were. This particular weekend saw the whole of the monastery milling around the campus, but for whatever reason, most of the students were busy elsewhere. It suited Shamir perfectly fine. She and Byleth had the whole garden to themselves, both of them planted in a chair beneath the gazebo (_actually_, Alois' voice popped unbidden into her head, _its square shape would indicate that it's really a 'pergola'_), Shamir nursing at a cup of lukewarm tea and Byleth poring over a book.  
  
Curious, Shamir watched her face. For the most part, the new professor was stone cold. She'd never seen anyone with a better poker face, and she liked to think she'd cultivated a pretty damn good one for herself. It was interesting to see Byleth’s pale face twitch. The bridge of her nose took on the subtlest wrinkle, and the corners of her mouth jerked the slightest bit when she turned the page to an illustration.  
  
Tilting her head, Shamir rested her jaw against a curled fist. "You okay?"  
  
To her surprise, Byleth actually frowned. A proper one too, her nose wrinkling further and the faintest look of disgust crossing her face. "I'm fine."  
  
Shamir snorted right back at her, dropping her arm and swallowing the last of her tea. "I've never seen you look squeamish before."  
  
The disgust faded. Byleth sat back and nodded once, hesitantly, her fingers curling against the page of her book. "To tell you the truth, I've never had much of a stomach for healing. It's not the blood or injuries, it's the...other things that can go wrong with a body."  
  
Now she was intrigued. Shamir leaned forward, intent to get a look at the page when a familiar voice called out to them. "Hello, ladies!" She turned to see Manuela crossing the lawn, a cup of tea cradled in her hands and her dress fluttering behind her in the breeze. Not one to await an invitation, she perched herself at the edge of a third chair and leaned into Byleth's space, her eyes wide with her curiosity. "What's that you're reading?" If Byleth was bothered by the way she squished their faces together in her effort to look over her shoulder, her blank face did nothing to betray it whatsoever.  
  
"I picked up a book on healing after your seminar, but I don't think the subject matter is for me."  
  
"Ah." Manuela's eyes trailed down the page, flickering back and forth and then darting over to the illustration. "Bed sores, eh? If you think that's bad, try imagining one the size of your fist!" She sat up straight again, one of her long fingers hooking around the handle of her tea cup and bringing it up to her lips to sip at it delicately. "I know, because I put my fist in it. I could see the man's bone."  
  
Shamir found herself blinking dumbly. "Manuela, that's disgusting."  
  
"What the hell," Byleth deadpanned beside her, swiveling in her seat and curling her lip.  
  
"That doesn’t sound like standard procedure."  
  
"Can’t say I ever heard of ‘medical fisting’ before."  
  
When they finally finished, Manuela merely scoffed at them, flicking one of her hands. "What?! He was paralyzed from the waist down. He couldn't _feel_ it. _Honestly_."  
  
Eugh. Byleth glanced back at her, and Shamir met her gaze as they indulged in a moment of mutual bafflement and incredulity. After a beat, Byleth looked back at Manuela and frowned again. "But why? Just 'cause?"  
  
She huffed at them colorfully, pressing a fist to her hips and tossing her hair. "Well, I told him I was going to do it."  
  
"...Still," Byleth argued, but Shamir interrupted, folding her arms against the table.  
  
"None of that answers why you put your fist in someone's wound."  
  
"I think she just wanted to."  
  
"You girls are so silly." Manuela stood up again, cocking her hips, one arm akimbo and the other still holding her teacup almost daintily. "Well, that's alright. Healing isn't for everyone. Enjoy your book, dear."  
  
She walked away with a swish of her white mantle, leaving the two of them to watch her disappear. When Shamir turned away from the woman, Byleth looked about as haunted as she'd ever seen her.  
  
"...Do you think Mercedes would put her fist in someone's bed sore?"  
  
"Doubt it."  
  
They lapsed into silence then. Shamir leaned back into her chair, frowning down into her empty teacup. "You know who would, though?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
Even as Byleth asked, her eyes cut back over to Shamir, and they both sighed in tandem. "Linhardt," they said at the same time.  
  
Several more minutes of silence passed them by. Byleth sipped idly at her tea that had long since cold, and when she stood, she snapped the book shut. "He only would if the wound wasn’t bloody. I'm going to return this to the library. I don't think healing is for me."

\---

It was early yet when Dedue availed himself of the greenhouse. The blossoms were lovely beneath the rays of the morning sun, and the flowers he'd tended with the professor were in full bloom. Very few students chose to visit when there was still sleep to be had, which meant he was afforded the chance to enjoy them without a lot of noise.  
  
He knelt to water a few of the needier plants when he heard the heavy swing of the greenhouse doors, and he tilted his head to see the professor standing about a foot away from him. Dedue paused, giving her the chance to speak.  
  
When she did not, he curled his fingers around the can and stood, nodding politely. "Is there something I can help you with?"  
  
"Yes. You like gardening, right?"  
  
Her face unchanging, and without awaiting a response, Byleth stepped forward and thrust a second watering can into his arms. "Here."  
  
For a painfully long moment, Dedue found himself incapable of a response. He lowered his head, balancing one watering can in each arm like they were a pair of metal twins. "I- Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
He anticipated that being the end of their bizarre transaction, but evidently, that was not so. Byleth paused, then produced a second watering can of mysterious origin, pushing that on top of the other two, and a third that she propped against his shoulder. It came dangerously close to toppling over his bicep. "...Professor."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Struggling to keep all four of the cans in his arms, Dedue frowned at her from over the veritable mountain of tin. "One watering can is perfectly sufficient. Why are you giving me three?"  
  
She cocked her head at him, wrinkling her nose ever so slightly. "You like it, right?"  
  
"Yes, but-"  
  
"So if you like _one_ watering can, then if I give you _three_ watering cans, you'll like it three times as much." Gallingly, she actually looked disappointed in him. She perched one hand on her hip and tilted them, a tiny frown gracing her mouth. "It's basic math, Dedue."  
  
"But-"  
  
"Just take the watering cans."  
  
Her face brooked absolutely no room for argument. Defeated, Dedue glanced down at all four of them. "...Thank you, professor."  
  
She nodded solemnly. "You're welcome." Before she turned on her heel to walk away from him, however, Byleth whipped out two ceremonial swords, gripping one hilt in each of her hands and staring at him. "Now, where's Dimitri? I have something to give him."

**Author's Note:**

> I have a whole list of in-game mishaps to use as fodder for this fic, but I'd absolutely love to hear your stories too.
> 
> If you're like me and you've ever chucked a unit into a perfect spot for enemy reinforcements to converge on, reclassed someone and deployed them with a bunch of weapons they can't use anymore, drowned a student in flowers, or anything else you want to share, please tell me in the comments! I'm dying to hear them.
> 
> ♥ Radi


End file.
